Murrieta, California

When families flee the absurd housing prices of San Diego and Los Angeles they typically have two priorities in mind.
1) Find a place they can afford to purchase a home, or at least a place they can afford to rent while they work to build their nest egg.
2) Excellent public schools so the lower costs don't come at their children’s expense.
Murrieta satisfies these requirements quite nicely. Median home prices are ~$650k, which by California standards, is quite reasonable. Match that with the city’s A+ ratings for public schools on niche.com and you can see why it’s a popular choice.

Alternately, complaining about Southern California traffic is incredibly boring but that doesn’t make it untrue. If you live here and have to commute to San Diego or LA every day we’ll just say don’t. Life’s too short. It can be two hours or more each way and seriously, that’s no way to live. Some do it via a 5 am start and mid-afternoon return and we guess that could be a way to make it work but seriously, if you’re considering moving here make sure your job is in the Inland Empire or you’re a full-time work-from-homer or at least only have to commute a day or two a week

Murrieta is well known as a safe, high-quality school system, suburb. It’s boring in a way many families appreciate. Minimal city-type quality of life issues, even if at the expense of the fun and culture that come from those city experiences. For nights and days out there is a small downtown area called Old Town. It ain’t La La Land for entertainment but there is a fun mix of microbrewer options like 8 Bit Brewing Company, inspired by 1980’s video games, the design is fun and family friendly (and dog-friendly). There’s also a multi-activity spot called Mulligan Family Fun Center with go-kart racing, laser tag, miniature golf, arcade, rides, batting cages, water slides and food. It’s a pretty awesome spot for the kiddos to recreate.

There are also tons of parks like the California Oaks Sports Park, that has not just the usual play structure and sports fields, but also a community pool and skate park to keep suburban kids busy.

Most transplants from the big cities will make fun of it for being a bit boring but also note that between Old Town (Downtown) and the places for families to recreate make it work when you feel the need to escape to a lower cost and higher quality school city.

The quality of the school system is probably tied to housing prices as the number one reason people move to Murrieta. As was noted it rates and "A+" on niche.com and virtually all the schools in the district grade out at an A so you don’t have to get too picky about the neighborhoods you consider as far as which school zone they fall under. Special props go out to Murrieta High School, recently named one of America's Most Spirited High Schools.

For those considering alternatives, there are private Christian Schools that are highly rated. Calvary Murrieta Christian runs schools from elementary to middle school and high school that are all considered excellent.